Dawnthief

by James Barclay

  The Temple itself was a low dome, ringed with forty spires and having a diameter of perhaps two hundred feet. A single needle spire rose from the centre of the planked and slated wooden roof, and the walls, marble and stone, shone in the post-rain sunshine.

  The Wrethsires were as disparate as the four Colleges were intensely familial. Small temples were scattered all over Balaia, but were sparse in number in the west when compared to the east. The order believed in a death force magic that had nothing to do with mana energy and so drew the unswerving scorn of every mage.

  They did harness something, that much was admitted, but whatever it was had proved unstable to control—far more so than mana—and the reports of accident and disaster were well documented throughout the two hundred years or so that the order had been established.

  The Raven had arrived late the previous evening after a sodden but otherwise uneventful journey through forested hillsides, steep valleys and swollen streams. Had it been dry, the landscape would have been beautiful.

  It had been dawn before the rain stopped, and the silence it brought was blessed relief from the incessant patter and drum. Full dawn was a brilliant sun from a cloudless sky, and quickly the land began to dry, steam rising from leaf, grass and shrub.

  Thraun had brought them to a stop in a dense area of woodland three miles from the Temple. Approaching unseen would be close to impossible during the daylight, but Denser had agreed to undertake a CloakedWalk around the dome later that morning. For now, though, the talk was of the Wrethsires themselves.

  “They are actually very quiet as an organisation,” said Erienne.

  “With plenty to be quiet about,” said Denser.

  “But they've got something, isn't that right?” asked Jandyr.

  “You could say, I suppose.” Denser shrugged.

  “Come on, Denser,” snapped Thraun. “We've all got to go in there.”

  Denser bridled. “They are a quasi-religious, quasi-magical—though I use the term very loosely—organisation. They pray to some idea of an earth death force, pretend they can harness it and claim some sort of brotherhood with the four Colleges because of it. They are frauds, their magic is flawed and their contention to be the fifth College is nothing short of repellent. Anything else?” Denser fetched his pipe from his cloak, filled the bowl from a bulging tobacco pouch courtesy of Lystern, and lit it from a flame on his thumb.

  Hirad flicked absently at a piece of leaf mould, his eyes spearing the Dark Mage.

  “In case it had slipped your mind, Denser, incomplete information has already claimed the life of my closest friend. And look at you. In fact look at all three of you mages, choking on the contempt you hold for these Wrethsires.” There was an uncomfortable shifting around the campsite. “Now I don't know whether this contempt is fair and I don't, frankly, give a damn. What I and my friends without their noses stuck in the air want to know is exactly what we might face in there. What spells do they have, are they weapons users, how many are there, you know. If you can't tell me because you don't know, fine. But don't keep me in the dark because you don't think it's important. Got it?” He shook his head at them. “Bloody mages on bloody pedestals.”

  Denser contemplated Hirad's words, raising his eyebrows at Ilkar who, unaccountably, was trying to suppress a smile.

  “I'm sorry, Hirad,” said Denser at length. “You're right. But they aren't magical and you can't call their castings spells.”

  “I don't care what you call them. Tell me what they do before I start getting irritated.”

  “Start?” Ilkar's smile surfaced.

  “Right.” Denser clapped his hands on his thighs. “What we know about the Wrethsires’ castings is patchy. We know that they are based in prayer utterances and that all their work is done in groups—the more Sires, the stronger the result. Their power, such as it is, is based on violent elemental forces like wind, rain, fire and so on and the death force they are supposed to produce.

  “The thing to watch out for is that they don't control it well. It makes all their castings unstable and so unpredictable both to them and, in this case, to us.”

  “In what way?” asked Jandyr.

  Denser shrugged. “Duration, power, direction, random result, backfire. You name it. Another belief is that when they die, their death force strengthens the Temple whole and that much of their combined power comes from this death element. It gives them a rather misplaced confidence.”

  “And you're saying they don't harness this force?” said Will. Denser nodded. “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Pretty sure.” The Dark Mage's smile at Ilkar was somewhat embarrassed. Ilkar pursed his lips but said nothing.

  “Are they aggressive?” Hirad looked back from Ilkar to Denser.

  “No,” he replied. “Not like Wesmen, although for whatever reason, the Wesmen leave them completely alone. Or so we understand.” He looked round The Raven. “Anything else?”

  “How many of them are there?” Thraun took him up.

  “I haven't the faintest idea.”

  “I mean in the Arch Temple. Are we talking thirty, three hundred, what?”

  “I haven't the faintest idea.”

  “Great,” said The Unknown and Hirad together.

  “The temple will take several hundred but it was built for worship, don't forget. The Gods only know how many Sires they have down there, or blades for that matter. Hopefully I'll have some idea later.”

  But he found nothing. Travelling to the edge of the woodland by the Temple with Thraun to avoid being seen, Denser cast his CloakedWalk and strolled up to the pillared entrance. It was shut and he couldn't risk trying the grand polished brass rings that hung on the oak-striped doors. He moved in a clockwise direction around the Temple, taking in the ornate mosaics and carvings that decorated the walls. Great vistas of mountain and forest, sea and cliff and plain and desert mixed with representations of fire, wind through the sky and one particularly grim mosaic depicting a walk of the dead.

  Not a sound came from inside. Vents were shuttered, side and rear doors were closed and the spires, beautifully worked cones of black marble standing twice his height, gave no clue to the whereabouts of the Wrethsires. He returned to Thraun and they made their way back to the campsite.

  “Should we be surprised, or not?” asked Will, his eyes bright under his now completely grey hair.

  “To be honest, I don't see why,” said Denser. “Like I said, it's a place of worship. Very few, if any, will actually live there. And it's still only mid-morning. But I don't know…”

  “What's the problem?” Hirad pulled himself to his feet and stretched. “Sounds to me as though we could get in and out right now and save ourselves a lot of trouble.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind too,” agreed Denser. “But I can't help thinking that if it was my temple, I'd have it guarded. Particularly with what's going on around here right now.”

  “I don't get where you're going with this,” said Hirad. “If they've screwed up leaving the place unguarded, that's to our advantage.”

  “I don't know,” said Denser, “It just didn't feel right.”

  “Sixth sense?” Erienne ran a hand through Denser's hair.

  He nodded. “Something like that. I just think we should be careful.”

  “We were always going to be that,” said Ilkar.

  “So do we move now or stick by the original plan?” Jandyr looked to Hirad but it was The Unknown who spoke.

  “In daylight, we risk Wrethsires coming to the Temple; in the dead of night, we don't. I can see no reason to rush in, we're not in any danger here. Hirad?”

  Hirad looked into the chasm of The Unknown's eyes and wondered if they would ever be full again. But though his soul was empty, his mind was sharp, and his voice carried all of its old authority. While he had been gone, Hirad had missed that.

  “I agree. Why rush? Let's rest up, make sure we've got our tactics straight and keep to our timetable. I don't think we're going to hav
e too much spare time after this.” He smiled ruefully. “Darrick is good but there are a lot of Wesmen in his way.”

  Baron Blackthorne stood at the entrance to his most profitable mine, half a mile above his blazing town, and looked down on his fallen world. As night fell, the fires died down but the Wesmen encampments burned bright with lights and the noise of celebration.

  He and Gresse had a handful fewer than two thousand men at their disposal. Most of them had horses, taken either from the courtyard or the many tithe farms over which he was Lord. Again, the Wesmen hadn't given chase when he had retreated, demonstrating an awful confidence in their ability to secure victory at their leisure. It was a confidence Blackthorne found it hard not to share.

  The death toll in the town had been high and the Baron had decided to send his untrained reservists, those that still lived, to safer areas where they could bolster the standing defences of key population centres: Korina, Gyernath, the College cities, even Baron Corin's lands to the far northeast. Even the farms lay idle, their tenants packed on to wagons and ordered east to wherever would have them.

  Blackthorne tapped his fist again and again on the rock by his head, his anger undimmed, his humiliation complete. But beneath it was a wash of pride. As he'd ordered the retreat, the horns, backed by flags, blaring out their message, he'd seen his men in the town redouble their efforts to keep the Wesmen back. Closing ranks, they'd grouped in a tight formation in the market crescent, drawing the Wesmen on and providing stout final resistance. Without their selfless action, Blackthorne wondered whether he would be standing where he was now or lying dead in his own blood.

  He stared down at the lights blazing in the castle. Someone else would be sleeping in his bed tonight. An enemy. He seethed. Gresse came to his shoulder.

  “There was nothing you could do,” he said. “At least this way we live to fight on.”

  “But for how long?” Blackthorne's voice was bitter. “We've got no defence against the Shamen magic.”

  “But at least we survived to warn Darrick and the Colleges. If mages can effectively shield walls, we can still win.”

  “But we leave our men open to magical attack,” said Blackthorne. “We have no idea how many Shamen there are, and without the scale of magical offence we had been counting on, our soldiers can't fight the odds. There are too many Wesmen. You heard the reports. Eighty-five thousand. Altogether, the east has barely half that number in soldiers worth the name. And the Wesmen are already on their way to Understone and, I expect, Gyernath. We had to hold them for three days to give The Raven a fair chance and we managed ten minutes.

  “If Understone Pass goes the same way, The Raven will have nothing to return to. It'll already be too late.”

  Gresse put a hand on Blackthorne's shoulder. It was the Baron's darkest hour and his assessment of their situation felt uncomfortably accurate. He had lost his home and his people were spreading over the country. Many would never return and he had not, could not, put up any fight. There was no real consolation, but Gresse tried anyway.

  “Even if the Wesmen are drinking wine from the KTA vaults in Korina, if the Wytch Lord magic is taken from them, we can rout them.”

  Blackthorne turned to him, shaking his head. “Gresse, if the Wesmen take Korina there will be no one left to rout them. Gods, if they sack the College Cities we may as well sail south and leave them to it.”

  Gresse let his head drop. Blackthorne was right. And if the Wesmen strength at Triverne Inlet was as strong as the one camped in and around Blackthorne, they would be at the gates of Julatsa in four days.

  The afternoon and evening passed without incident for The Raven. Thraun and The Unknown spent much of the time watching the Temple and its approach. They saw no one, adding to Denser's unease.

  Before moving on to the Temple, The Raven ate in the fading light. The mood was sombre.

  “If our failure becomes inevitable, we must ensure that Dawnthief is destroyed before the Wytch Lords get it,” said Denser.

  “How?” asked Will.

  “Just melt the catalysts, or one of them,” said Denser. “It's simple.”

  “So we could take this spell out of the game right now,” said Will.

  “If we wanted to throw away our only chance of beating the Wytch Lords, yes.” Denser shrugged. “But there's one thing I must make clear. If I am killed and it becomes obvious that none of us is going to live to return the catalysts to Xetesk, one or all of them must be destroyed. Because if the Wytch Lords get hold of it, there is no chance. Not even for the Wesmen.”

  The Raven exchanged looks around the stove. Hirad helped himself to some more coffee from the iron pot on its hot plate.

  “All right then,” said Jandyr. “Say we do what we have to do and the Wytch Lords are gone, what then?”

  “It won't stop the Wesmen, that's certain, although it will remove their total arrogance and belief in victory,” replied Denser. “You have to understand that it now seems the Wesmen have been preparing for this for perhaps ten years. They are united, they are strong and they are determined. But what's more important is that they know the east is fragmented. They'll believe they can still take Balaia with or without the Wytch Lords. And if they retake the pass before our armies are ready, they might just do it.”

  “Aren't you being a little overdramatic, Denser?” Hirad was smiling. “Surely your mages can hold the pass indefinitely with that water spell of yours.” Ilkar tutted. Denser shook his head and smiled at Erienne. “You know something, I really hate it when you mages get smug.”

  “Sorry, Hirad, you're not to know,” said Denser. “But to us, that statement is like us wondering why you can't fight so well with one arm or something.”

  “So tell me,” said Hirad.

  “You saw the spell and you saw the condition of the mages who walked away. Two didn't.” Denser sucked his lip. “What you don't know is what went on before, or the long-term aftermath. Those mages spent two weeks in preparation, testing and resting. They were secluded from the rest of the College to maximise their concentration level. Now they've cast, they'll be unable to perform any spell for the best part of three days, and as for the DimensionConnect, not for another two weeks. And that assumes that the dimension with which we want to connect is in alignment with ours.”

  “But the Wesmen don't know that,” said Hirad, worried more than he hoped he was showing that this spell was not available every couple of days at the least.

  “There will be enough Shamen able to make educated guesses about the spell once they've heard information about it,” said Erienne.

  “And consider this,” said Ilkar. “There's probably only one spell written that is more powerful, and I don't need to tell you its name. Any Shaman worth a damn will know we've originated a dimension spell and used it. That'll tell them all they need about the likely effort required to cast it.”

  The night was warm but Hirad felt a chill on his body. The powers they were dealing with, the power they'd already seen and the power they wanted to unleash. He couldn't help but feel it was all spiralling out of control. And if they took the Death's Eye Stone from the Wrethsires, it would make Denser the most powerful man in Balaia.

  “Something else has been bothering me.” They all looked at Will. “Do you think the Wytch Lords know we're here, this side of the pass?”

  “The Raven?”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” The Unknown was certain. “All they can possibly know now is that the pass has fallen—spectacularly—and they'll be doing their level best to retake it. They—or rather, their agents—know there's a search for Dawnthief because of our appearance at Septern's house but they won't have enough information to target us or our position. Not yet at any rate.”

  “To stop any confusion,” said Denser, “remember the Wytch Lords have not regained corporeal form yet and their power is still limited. When they are walking, that's when we have to worry, though we don't know when that will be.”

  “How
many Wytch Lords are there?” asked Will.

  “Six,” said Ilkar. “Embarrassingly enough, I don't know all of their names, although I should. Denser?”

  “Seriously?”

  “It was never high on my learning list, no.”

  “Gods, it was a mantra to us. Pamun, Arumun, Belphamun, Weyamun, Ystormun, Giriamun.”

  “Very impressive.” Ilkar smiled.

  “Not really,” said Denser. “Names to terrorise errant mages, generally. It's a shame they are no longer an idle threat, isn't it?”

  The conversation broke up. The beasts had been named and each member of The Raven, perhaps for the first time, took on the enormity of what they were trying to achieve. And its potential futility. For while they were guaranteed defeat if they lost Dawnthief to the Wytch Lords, they weren't guaranteed victory if they destroyed them.

  Denser lit his pipe, his thoughts drifting inevitably toward his Familiar. He forced himself to push them aside, concentrating instead on images of the single great tomb that dominated Parve and the Torn Wastes. A grand stairway led up to the heart of the pyramid. Ornate mosaics and decorations adorned the walls and floor of a great domed hall at the end of which a single door stood at the entrance to the crypt. Inside, the Keepers tended the six stone sarcophagi, preparing the way for the return of the Ancients. Waiting for the movement within that signalled the reincarnation of essence that would stir the Wytch Lords’ bones and bring the regeneration of the flesh. He shuddered and prayed they would be in time.

  With full night holding sway, The Raven moved on to the trail leading directly to the Arch Temple of the Wrethsires. Thraun was convinced that no one would pass them in either direction, and Denser, beginning to believe the Temple would be empty, wondered why the thought worried him so profoundly.

  They were at the Temple in an hour, its squat dark shape looming into view against the flat black of the cliffs behind as the path opened out beyond the edge of the tree line. The silence was complete but for the lake on their left, whose soft ripples brought an aura of calm to the scene that was not reflected in the minds of The Raven.